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24FPS

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Taylor1
It was only a short period of time that Brianwas playing badly in the Stones,December1968until May 1969.Fromthe bootlegs I’ve heard ,he played fine on the 1967 tour.Marianne Faithful said he played great at the NME 1968 concert..Check out his playing on Ruby Tuesday’s the 1967 tour.And even though he wasn’t fully engaged on Beggar’sBanquet,his guitar onNo Expectaions,mellotron on JigsawPuzzle and Stray CatBlues,and sitar on Street Fighting Man is great.A lot of the opinion of how much he had deteriorated was based on his performance at the Rock n Roll Circus.But evenhis poor performance there can be attributed somewhat to him not going on stage until 300in the morning after doing drugs all day .Moreover ,I think he had lost interest in the band by 1969.But he didn’t lose his abilities as a musician.He could have rehabilitated himself had he lived.

Where is Brian's guitar playing 'great' in this period? Keith was forced to do almost all of the guitar work, including rhythm. Yes, 'No Expectations' was the exception to the rule.

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Mathijs
How tragic it is, but the fact that Jones was replaced with Taylor gave the Stones new life, and 10 years more. I am sure they would have vanished like 98% of all other 1960's bands without the fresh blood of a hot new young lead guitar player. Same for Ron Wood -they would not have survived the punk years with Taylor, but managed to reinvent themselves with Wood. Part of the Stones longevity is the fact that they changed personnel.

Mathijs

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Mathijs

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Taylor1
It was only a short period of time that Brianwas playing badly in the Stones,December1968until May 1969.Fromthe bootlegs I’ve heard ,he played fine on the 1967 tour.Marianne Faithful said he played great at the NME 1968 concert..Check out his playing on Ruby Tuesday’s the 1967 tour.And even though he wasn’t fully engaged on Beggar’sBanquet,his guitar onNo Expectaions,mellotron on JigsawPuzzle and Stray CatBlues,and sitar on Street Fighting Man is great.A lot of the opinion of how much he had deteriorated was based on his performance at the Rock n Roll Circus.But evenhis poor performance there can be attributed somewhat to him not going on stage until 300in the morning after doing drugs all day .Moreover ,I think he had lost interest in the band by 1969.But he didn’t lose his abilities as a musician.He could have rehabilitated himself had he lived.

To be a professional musician you need more than just prowess on an instrument. You need to be able to cope with band mechanics of artistic and narcissistic people, power struggles, stress, boredom, drugs, alcohol, too much money, woman, hangers-on, and everybody thinks your just utterly fantastic.

Brian just didn't have the personality to be a Rock and Roll star, and he wasn't alone in that.

Mathijs

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Taylor1

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Taylor1

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24FPS

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georgie48

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24FPS

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Taylor1
Well,he was still a young man.If he had cleaned up,maybe in a couple of years he could have contributed musically.Eric Clapton was horrible zombieat The Concert for Bangladesh and played bad,with Jesse Ed Davis having to brought in at the last minute to cover for him.And he cleaned up and was great again .So maybe in 1972 or 1973 there may have been a new Brian.

That's so hard to say. He wasn't much of a lead guitar player, didn't write songs, couldn't sing, or wouldn't. Others were surpassing him on slide. When was Brian still great? '65? That's a long way to come back from.

Brian played great flute in Paris 1967 live, so I have a hard time believing his musical skills were gone by 1969.
None of the members of the Stones were ever great. The power of the Stones was/is in the collective. Brian's important contribution (not so much as a guitarist) to the Stones went as far as 1968, which was confirmed by the other band members. He added a lot of color to the Mick/Keith songs. But yes, it became less and less.

No Stones were great? Keith was the greatest Chuck Berry interpreter of all time. Listen to Bill Wyman backing Junior Wells/Buddy Guy/and Muddy Waters at Montreaux in 1974. He's fantastic. Totally different from his Stones playing.

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Redhotcarpet

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Mathijs

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Taylor1
It was only a short period of time that Brianwas playing badly in the Stones,December1968until May 1969.Fromthe bootlegs I’ve heard ,he played fine on the 1967 tour.Marianne Faithful said he played great at the NME 1968 concert..Check out his playing on Ruby Tuesday’s the 1967 tour.And even though he wasn’t fully engaged on Beggar’sBanquet,his guitar onNo Expectaions,mellotron on JigsawPuzzle and Stray CatBlues,and sitar on Street Fighting Man is great.A lot of the opinion of how much he had deteriorated was based on his performance at the Rock n Roll Circus.But evenhis poor performance there can be attributed somewhat to him not going on stage until 300in the morning after doing drugs all day .Moreover ,I think he had lost interest in the band by 1969.But he didn’t lose his abilities as a musician.He could have rehabilitated himself had he lived.

To be a professional musician you need more than just prowess on an instrument. You need to be able to cope with band mechanics of artistic and narcissistic people, power struggles, stress, boredom, drugs, alcohol, too much money, woman, hangers-on, and everybody thinks your just utterly fantastic.

Brian just didn't have the personality to be a Rock and Roll star, and he wasn't alone in that.

Mathijs

I dont know what rock star personality that is. Cobain, Hendrix, Morrison are some of the greatest. Keith seems like a very insecure man. Sure, Brian was too concerned with other people’s perception of him.

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Spud
Very many certainly are ...

...and any of us who have played in bands professionally have experienced at least a liitle bit of all that less pleasurable stuff as mentioned by Mathijs that comes with it .